Kelly shook her head. “No ID?”

“Not on him. We’ll check the rest of the place, but who knows…” He shrugged helplessly. “You should see those back rooms, they’re a mess. Looks like they had a small army camped out here.”

“Doesn’t look like a skinhead, and he’s definitely not Mexican,” Rodriguez said.

“Minuteman, maybe? And there was an altercation?” Kelly said.

“We’ll get a team out here to dust for prints, have the ME give us a time of death,” the officer said.

“No rigor, so not long ago,” Kelly said.

“Unless it already passed,” Rodriguez remarked.

“He looks too good for that. In this heat, no AC, even in a sheltered area he’d be in much worse shape.” Kelly wasn’t a doctor, but she’d seen enough dead bodies to get a sense of these things. She wondered who he was, and why he’d been killed. She shook her head, frustrated. This case kept raising more questions than it answered. “I want his photo run against missing persons reports filed in the past week.”

“Just in Houston?” the tactical agent asked.

“Let’s start there, then expand to the rest of the state.”

“Look on the bright side,” Rodriguez said. “We made good on the warrant. That should get McLarty off your back, at least for now.”

“Maybe,” Kelly said, distracted. There was something glowing twenty yards away, toward the rear of the warehouse. “What’s that?”

Rodriguez followed her across the warehouse. Kelly knelt to examine the strange powder: it shimmered iridescent blue, almost seeming to pulse.

Rodriguez reached a finger toward it. Kelly grabbed his hand, stopping him. “Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t your mother ever say if you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it?”

Kelly waved over the head of the tactical unit. He trotted toward them, slowing when he saw the powder.

“Holy shit,” he said in a low voice, stopping a few feet away.

“Can we get a-”

“Everybody out! Now!” he hollered, turning and circling a finger in the air. At his tone the rest of the unit froze, then retreated for the exits.

“What is it?” Rodriguez asked, sounding scared. He took a few steps back, tracking it. His footprints glowed phosphorescent.

The agent noticed. “Sir, I’m going to ask you to remove your shoes without touching them. Then we go outside and wait for a Hazmat team.”

“Shit, are they ruined?” Rodriguez looked down, panic seeping into his voice. “I love these shoes.”

“What do you think it is?” Kelly asked the tactical commander. They watched from twenty feet away as Rodriguez gingerly pulled off one shoe with the toe of the other, then beat a path to them in his socks, careful to avoid the small puddles of blue.

“Not exactly sure, ma’am. All I know is if it glows, we go. Standard procedure.”

“How long until we can get a crime scene unit in here?” Kelly asked, following him to the door.

He shook his head. “I got a feeling,” he said grimly, “that this is going to be a hell of a lot bigger than one dead guy.”

Maltz had his back pressed against a tree. He could see Fribush and Jagerson behind a tractor about a dozen yards to his left. Jagerson had taken a hit. He was clutching his leg while Fribush bent to examine it. They were pinned down. There were two, maybe three hostiles at twelve o’clock, about twenty yards away from him. Another two at ten o’clock, aiming at Fribush and Jagerson. The rest had either fallen behind or were holding their fire, though he doubted these amateurs would be that smart. So far they’d been tentative-a good spray of fire was enough to send them diving for cover. But Maltz was running out of ammo, and they knew it. They were getting bolder, advancing. Dangel had never made it back from the van run, which meant he was probably down, and if Jagerson couldn’t be moved, Maltz didn’t love the odds of them completing this mission. To be brought down by a group of hacks would be the ultimate insult, he’d prefer to swallow his gun. And he hated the thought of these rednecks getting hold of the girls and their mother, even if they were the biggest collective pains in the ass he’d ever had the pleasure of dealing with.

Where the fuck was Syd? he thought, checking his radio again. It spit out a stream of static, and he cursed silently. If he made it out of this alive, he was definitely upgrading, this subpar civvy shit was worthless. He tried transmitting their position via Morse code again, compressing the talk button, hoping someone out there was paying attention.

“We got her!” A voice yelled. Maltz’s heart sank. He craned his head around the side of the tree, careful to stay out of the line of fire. A guy in a leather vest with scraggly hair was dragging one of the girls-the older one, without the cast. Crap. Maltz wondered where the other two were, if they’d been smart enough to hide.

“Stop shooting or I kill the bitch!” the guy yelled.

Maltz braced himself against the tree trunk. His rifle was specially equipped with an infrared laser, allowing him to see exactly where the shot was going, even at a distance of a few hundred yards. He sighted down his rifle: Bree was an inch too tall, just blocking a perfect head shot. Maltz gritted his teeth, mentally willing her to move to the side, duck down, something. She stumbled slightly and his finger tensed, but the guy yanked her up again. They were fifteen feet away now. If he had a good opening, there was no way he could miss. The girl stumbled again, and he had a clear shot. Maltz steadied his aim, braced to squeeze the trigger…

“Wait! Please don’t hurt her.”

Maltz squeezed his eyes shut in frustration as the mother emerged from the shadows, hands held high. Jesus, he thought, shaking his head. Civilians.

The scraggly guy’s head pivoted, ruining the angle, and Maltz sighed. Another figure appeared, hopping on one leg-the youngest. Fucking perfect time for a family reunion.

He glanced over to Jagerson and Fribush. Fribush shrugged and indicated that he didn’t have a clear shot, either. Maltz clenched his jaw as the guy gathered the women in front of him. “All right, assholes, stop shooting or I’ll start.”

Maltz hadn’t fired a shot in a few minutes, and neither had his men, but he figured this wasn’t the time to point that out. A pro would have demanded they throw down their weapons and show themselves; the fact that he hadn’t meant they still had a chance. He signaled for Fribush to keep a line on the guy. If Maltz could draw him away from the women, into a position where Fribush had a clear shot…

“I’m coming out! Don’t shoot!” Maltz yelled, leaning his rifle against the tree. The guy’s head swiveled, searching for him. Maltz took a step forward, still obscured by the shadows. He had a Glock 19 tucked in a holster behind his shoulder. If necessary he could access it quickly.

He heard voices approaching and took another step forward, breath tight in his chest. He hoped the rest were still leery of getting too close, otherwise they might be doomed.

“Bunch of crap you put us through,” the scraggly guy griped, “crossing the river and shit.”

“Yeah, well.” Maltz stepped to the side, and the guy tracked him. Untrained adversaries tended to follow with their bodies as well as their eyes, an instinct that only served them in dealings with other amateurs. One more step to the left and Fribush would be able to pick him off without risking the women. “Just doing my job.”

“Who the fuck hired you?” The guy shifted as Maltz took another step, turning with him. Good, Maltz thought. Just one more foot…

A sudden noise, from the direction of the house. They all froze. The guy reacted a second after Maltz, spinning to face it, opening himself up…

They didn’t end up needing the radio to find Maltz and the others, all they had to do was follow the gunfire. It bounced off the hills, sending them down a few wrong turns as they tried to pinpoint it. They were backtracking, and had reemerged on the main road when a cop car tore past, blazing lights and sirens.